Word: lector
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Lector, St. Paul's Parish...
...Roman Catholic Church's war on abortion. In a letter read at Masses in San Diego last week, Maher announced that no one in his 512,000-member diocese who publicly admits to membership in an organization that promotes abortion can receive the Eucharist or serve as a lector (lay reader). He specifically cited NOW for its "shameless agitation" on behalf of abortion...
Maher's move was apparently prompted by complaints from some Catholics in his diocese-a center of "right-to-life" activity-about a feminist leader named Jan Gleason. She is not only a parish lector but also a NOW member and, most upsetting of all to the antiabortionists, the national head of Catholics for a Free Choice. This group, like NOW, supports a woman's right of personal decision on abortion...
...issue. Catholic women, declared one NOW leader, must decide between "their body or their church." NOW'S national headquarters called for a "Day of Outrage" against the Catholic hierarchy -on Mother's Day. Just back from a week of ferrying orphans from Viet Nam to the U.S., Lector Gleason remarked: "I like the bishop very much, but he's never been pregnant...
More significant, Paul also issued a motu-proprio-a decree by his own hand-that barred women from formal investiture in even such minor roles in the ministry as lector (reader) and acolyte (assistant at Mass and other services). They have performed these functions extensively, if unofficially, since Vatican II and presumably will continue to do so. In a separate decree the Pope reaffirmed mandatory celibacy for deacons who are not married at the time of ordination or who become widowers...